The first of 2 volumes explaining proven methods of creating 3D cartoon characters for animation.

Not all I’d hoped

I’d read all the reviews prior to this book. Seemed pretty promising, although I wasn’t sure how easy it would be for beginners, but I thought I’d take a chance. The book itself was great with the descriptions and the photos to accompany them up until it came time to rig Morfi. Steps were skipped, though I’m not sure if the author simply assumed the reader would know what to do, or if he accidentally left them out. Certain sections tell you to copy and paste multiple times, but don’t tell you what to do what the items you’ve just pasted, and bam!; Instantly you’re at a new section, with a detailed summary of what the previous section should have looked like, without showing you how to get there. I haven’t even started animating yet, let alone started the more complex model in the second section of the book. If you’re looking to model low poly characters, and are somewhat of a beginner, the book is great! For Rigging/Animation I would recommend purchasing a second, more detailed/complete book.

LightWave 3D 8 Cartoon Character Creation by Jonny Gorden

Just finnished reading this book from A to Z. I have to tell you that even do I’ve been working with LW for some time, I still learned some great tips and tricks.
I highly recommand this Book to anyone who’s thinking about 3D animation. I hope that Volume 2 will bring me the same value but I strongly belief that I will love that Book even more.

[...]

The is the best Character Creation book I’ve found.

The book, 1Cartoon Character Creation Volume 1 & 2, has straightforward techniques approach to Learning Advanced LightWave Skills and Knowledge. I purchased Timothy Albee’s Lightwave 3D, "Getting Started Guide" which came with my purchase of the program, LightWave from Newtek. The Book got me started back in 2005. (A general skills book covers a broad range of LightWave. But does not get too deep, which is good for beginners.)

I was very interested in and loved cartooning and character creation in 3D. So I purchased Jonny Gorden’s "Cartoon Character Creation-Volume 2". If ya don’t know and wanna learn Rigging right, get this book. Jonny be getting off with his techniques in this bad boy. Loved the book.

(Jonny’s book covers A through Z in Rigging and Animation mostly plus overviews on general knowledge stuff as well. But since I already learned the basics with "Getting Started" I was able to get deep into Jonny’s techniques.)

Great but sometimes tricky

I am an animation student and have been using lightwave for about 10 weeks, so alot of this was all new to me. I had never modelled a 3d character before and found this book a great help.

I highly recommend it. However, there is one flaw: The images. This book is alot smaller than normal computer manuals, which helps for moving it around, but can be confusing. Alot of the time you are moving around points and they can be difficult to see. That is the only real flaw and can be solved by viewing the images on the cd, which are larger and colour.

Great but sometimes tricky

I am an animation student and have been using lightwave for about 10 weeks, so alot of this was all new to me. I had never modelled a 3d character before and found this book a great help.

I highly recommend it. However, there is one flaw: The images. This book is alot smaller than normal computer manuals, which helps for moving it around, but can be confusing. Alot of the time you are moving around points and they can be difficult to see. That is the only real flaw and can be solved by viewing the images on the cd, which are larger and colour.

So far so good...

First off, I have taken a college level class to get my feet wet in 3D animation, and I feel this book has so far encompassed as much if not more than that class (though this book does assume that you are somewhat familiar with Lightwave).

I’m in the midst of rigging my first Lightwave character and so far it’s been a pretty smooth process. On one hand I’m dismayed by the amount of pages until I get to the part where I can start animating and having fun...! But in all reality, there is a wealth of information and I’m confident that this book will make me a much, much stronger Lightwave user overall. I am honestly suprised by all the things I’ve delved into that I never even knew existed in Lightwave (mostly done modeling and texturing).

It’s impressive that the first character you model and rig is a slightly complex character in that it’s more than just a stick figure. I feel that while challenging (cartoony characters are deceptively complex in some ways) it’s a good balance. Afterall, if everything goes smoothly then you have a cool character to animate, not just a rigged stick figure.

All in all, this book (especially at the Amazon.com discounted price) is very worthwhile and this is coming from someone who’s only halfway through Vol. 1. In the few days I’ve been utilizing the material I already feel that my core knowledge of Lightwave has increased quite a bit.

[A note to the publisher: Might be a good idea to differentiate between the two volumes with a different color cover or something to that effect. From a distance these books both look the same with a yellow cover and a pig in the foreground. I had them both added to my cart thinking it was a duplicate or something until I realized that YES! there are two volumes! ...maybe I just need glasses...)

Excellent guide to creating your own toons!

I brought this book when I was initially learning LightWave and had zero experience. I recommend buying ’Essential Lightwave 3D 8 ’ prior or with this book if you are just beginning as this book assumes at least a basic understanding of what the tools are, what they do and where they are located.

I found the book itself to be great. It de-mystifies the entire process of creating a cartoon character from bulbous head to stubby toe. The sections on texturing were particularly nice, going over all the ins and outs of UV mapping, when, where and how.

Now here is the thing that makes this book great. When I purchased this book I was deciding whether to upgrade my LightWave to version 8 or buy SoftImage|XSI. I ended up going with SoftImage and I used this book several times to model entire characters in SoftImage. This made it apparent to me how clear and concise the steps by step processes and detailed images are. I later upgraded LightWave just to model the pig-boy toon featured inside, among other things.

While much of the lessons covered can be found in online tutorials or videos about character modeling, this book is an invaluable reference. I highly recommend it.

Great must-have book!

This book is a great one to have in your Lightwave library, and even if you use another software package you will be able to follow his techniques to help you master the fascinating and technical aspects of animation. Jonny does assume you have basic knowledge of Lightwave 3D and have the ability to move around and understand it’s interface. What I loved about this book is that doesn’t tell you to do this and do that, He actually explains why! This is from setting up the interface to why he works the way he does. this book goes into great detail explaining how to create a character (and why you create it in a certain way) and how to texture it in a realistic way. I bought also his companion book Volume Two,because as he explains, there is just so much information you NEED to know!
It’s great reading and chock full of information, includes a disc with all the files and screen shots to help you along the way.

Excellent...But!

This is a very well thought out book. Being that I am relatively new to Lightwave I had a bit of difficulty with the book and spend a great deal of time trying to figure out how to use some tools which I have not had the chance to use before. I think before one wishes to use this book that they get a good grasp of tool useage first and then this book will make much more sense.

The other complaint. I know I gave it four stars on content which I think it deserves but there are a few things which could have been better. The screenshots were too small (approximately 2 inches square) and when you have a figure with a bunch of polygons and points it gets very confusing which to select to follow the lesson. Also, when author interchanges the term "move" with "Drag" and "Extend" instead of "Extender Plus" it gets a bit frustrating until you figure that out and make the correct choice.

Like I said, I am new to Lightwave and as a beginner I just think one’s time would be better spent learning the tools before one starts in with these lessons. Otherwise the book is great. My first character is coming along just great. It just takes me a bit longer because I am not only learning how to make a character but also how to use tools I have never used before. If you have patience then this is great.

Tome of Knowledge

This book is a wonderful tome, containing not just the instructions to build, map rig, texture and light your model, but also tons of really useful tip and tricks.

Jonny’s methods are simple and straightforward, easy to use and sensible. This is clearly the work of a real expert in the field.

I bow low to Jonny Gorden, Character Master.

Lightwave 3D (8) Cartoon Character Creation

I got this book a few days ago. After going through it and working with it I think it delivers what it promises: Character Modeling and Texturing. It gives you fairly straight forward information (most of which most users of LW may already know) mixed with fresh news for those of us getting used to animation in Version 8 of LightWave. Having used Lightwave in a different capacity and recently wanting to use it for some character animation - this book was a great help to me. Will it be useful for someone already using Lightwave for character animation? I guess that all depends on your level of expertise. This is not a beginner book (even though it says it starts at that level) mainly because it assumes you know your way around LightWave somewhat. However, people with the talent for picking up software programs will have no problem starting out new.

Like almost all software books it comes with a CD containing project files, plug-ins, etc. You load em. Use em. Etc. I buzzed through the tutorals pretty quick and I gotta say they are easy to follow and thorough without being so basic you feel like you waste half a book getting people up to speed. We have all been there with that disappointment. This book does not do that.

It also does a great job on the process of texturing your models. Now, don’t confuse that with how to create textures (there are other books that specialize in that.) What it does show you is how to apply textures to your models properly. In addition are instruction on how to test lighting, rendering and creating QuickTime VR files to view model.

Again, this book is exactly as the title says. If you want to learn everything there is to know about LightWave there are different books to help you. This is not a replacement for a LW manual. However, if you want to learn how to setup some characters for animation and avoid hassels and pitfalls...get this book.